Human Rights Trends and Coercive Family Planning in the PRC

Abstract

Overall trends in the human rights situation in the People`s Republic of China (PRC) are considered. Several conceptual distinctions are introduced which are designed to reduce confusion in debates about human rights in the PRC. In most realms the human rights situation in the PRC has improved markedly since the death of Mao. Since 1989 the human rights trend has involved fluctuations rather than steady progress, but with no overall retreat from the gains made during the 1980s. However, in the realm of the reproductive rights of China`s citizens trends are dramatically different. Coercive family planning efforts produced a sharp deterioration in this human rights realm after 1979. The essay concludes by considering the troubling questions raised by the sharply divergent trends in reproductive rights and other human rights in the PRC.